Salt Point Cleanup Day
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Multi-Club Salt Point Clean-up Day and Campout
Spend a relaxing weekend doing good and having fun. Salt Point State Park, in Northern Sonoma County, is home to an amazing bounty of year-round mushrooms. It is also one of the rare areas in California where we can openly collect, within reasonable limits. Come show your civic spirit, and help give back to a park that gives so much to us.
We have scheduled the timing of this cleanup to coincide with the end of the primary, trash-tossing tourist season. This will help us to all enjoy a pristine park once our rains start in earnest, plus give us the opportunity to explore a spectacular landscape during fine Fall weather, and at a time when the park is mostly empty of other visitors.
Salt Point is where the surf meets the turf, and it produces many pockets of biological magic. Early Fall chanterelles hide beneath the thick duff, while pileated woodpeckers and ospreys rule the air above. The sandstone cliffs along the sea not only produce saucers of salt for gatherers, but strange and wonderful, wind and water carved natural sculpture.
We will meet at Salt Point State Park, Woodside day use parking lot, at 10:00 am. Park personnel will provide us with attractive orange hazard vests and giant trash bags; we must provide our own protective gloves and good attitudes! After a couple of hours combing the park roadsides and paths, we will return to pile high our finds, and share a potluck lunch. Folks are welcome to then scour the park for possible early edibles and interesting specimens, to toddle along the tide pools, or otherwise enjoy the spectacular setting; we will have a group campout that night in beautiful Woodside Campground.
This clean-up is sponsored by BAMS and the Fungus Federation of Santa Cruz, but any mushroom hunter or park appreciator is welcome to join us. For those far-flung friends who wish to participate and for whom camping has lost its charm, there are many places to stay along the Coast, from the Salt Point Lodge to the south to Sea Ranch to the North. But camping (or RVing) is the cheapest and most convivial option. Carpooling strongly encouraged.
For more info, contact Debbie Viess at amanitarita@sbcglobal.net or 510.430.9353
